Well, my husband’s love language is ACTS of SERVICE. So because his birthday is tomorrow, I thought it would be great to do something nice for him. Instead of taking him out to a fancy steak dinner and showering him with presents, he said he’d rather stay at home and be with his family. So I bought t-bone steaks for us to grill here at home and I immediately realized that I should probably clean up the kitchen counters for him. After all, he DOES do all the cooking in our house and it’s the least I could do. Especially for his birthday.

Ever since I was diagnosed with ADHD, a huge relief came over me. I finally understand why focusing is so difficult for me. Especially holding my focus while cleaning. I see a messy room and I am immediately overwhelmed. So a trick that my mother-in-law taught me was to just focus on ONE CORNER. If you can accomplish JUST A CORNER, then you will feel accomplished and maybe even motivated enough to start on another section of the room. I completed this corner project just before dinner. Had I had more time, I might’ve done more. Enjoy this little video.

As I learn how to stop being a slob, one of my go-to solutions from Nony the Slob is to do the 5 minute pick up. This strategy works for me because I see each room as a daunting task. I know I will never have enough time to clean the entire house! So instead of thinking of it as a never-ending problem, I just commit to 5 minutes. This not only improves each room, 5 minutes at a time, but it also helps me stay focused for about 45 minutes before I poop out. As someone with ADHD, I need to concentrate my focus for short periods at a time. Is this house clean? Of course not! But does it look better than it used to? You betcha! And if that’s the best I can do, I will pat myself on the back and call it good. No one improves on their best performance level by beating themselves up. They just keep practicing their best performance, daily (if possible) and learn to build up their skill and stamina. If you don’t believe me, just commit to 5 minutes and see if you feel better too.

Music is by Max McFerren and awesomely enough, it’s called “Mom’s House” ~ provided by YouTube Audio

I took just a few minutes to clean up 2 different areas rather quickly.
The Piano & The Fridge.

here are some before and after pictures.

Watch the QUICK video by clicking on the link below.

Music is called: Someone Your Own Size from the YouTube Audio Library by RW Smith. Which is quite fitting for this short video – because even if you NO TIME to deep clean your house, you will ALWAYS have just a few minutes to tidy up a bit. So don’t try to fit yourself into a cleaning routine that doesn’t fit you or your lifestyle, clean to your own “size”. For example, I work full time, have 2 kids and husband – all 3 of them demand my constant attention and if I just hit RECORD while I talk to them, help them with homework or cook dinner, I can also tidy up for a few minutes too. It’s pretty cool to realize that… as a slob, I would’ve ALWAYS used the “NO TIME” thing as an excuse. Not anymore!
Ladies and Gentlemen…
I call that: PROGRESS.

If you’ve ever heard of Marie Kondo then you might have heard of her insane tidying method coined “The KonMari Method”. In which, she helps several clients all over the world purge their excess belongings based on a simple question: “Does this spark join?”

And of course, her method is much more complex than that – but the basis of it is brilliant. Why are we holding onto things if we aren’t enjoying them? Why do we collect several items such as clothing, books, papers, etc if we aren’t enjoying them to their fullest potential?

I stumbled across Marie Kondo’s book several years ago and gave it a heartfelt try. I didn’t complete her full suggestions for every corner of the house, but I did manage to purge several items that no longer brought me joy. One category, in fact, was the unused scrapbook supplies that I hadn’t used in over 10 years. I knew that I no longer had joy in keeping these items, nor would I ever find my joy if I did make an attempt to use these exact items again. So I sold them. At a very low dollar amount, I might add. It made my husband upset. He felt that I was throwing away hundreds of dollars worth of “valuable products” that I MIGHT want again and he couldn’t understand how much freer I felt by removing them from my home. I gained more “JOY” by freeing up space and letting go clutter that no longer served me. If only I could translate that into other areas of my life.

Fast forward a few years and the creation of this blog and my youtube channel has jumped me LIGHTYEARS ahead of the mentality towards cleaning that I used to have.

I heard about Marie Kondo’s new series on Netflix. It’s called “TIDYING UP”. It basically follows Marie (and her translator) to a different family’s home in each episode. I watched the first two episodes this past Saturday and found myself feeling inspired again.

I could’ve watched MORE episodes but I was tired of being lazy – can you believe it? ME?! Tired of being LAZY. That is sooo not like me. I was motivated to go through my closet.

Click below to find out the outcome! (Or you can just look at the photos below)

When my son expressed DEEP concern for his new dolls, I mean, “guys” – I knew I needed to do something. After all, he spent a lot of time putting these dolls, I mean “guys” together and the last thing he wants is for them to accidentally break, get chewed on by the dogs or get lost.

So I looked around his room and an idea started to form.

What if we took this dirty looking corner and transform it into a display corner for your dolls, I mean “guys”!?!

This video might show you a couple examples of how I am disciplining myself as an adult.

For one, at work, I might be considered to have the messiest desk in the office. Oh boy, I hope that’s not true, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it is true. It’s a good thing they only see the TOP of my desk, yes, it’s pretty bad, normally, but if they were to see inside my desk drawer… they would be mortified.

So I opened up my desk drawer, started the camera and cleaned it out. There’s a lot of pauses in between the tidying up because I only worked on this drawer in between taking calls and talking to co-workers. The results are stunning (if I do say so myself.) As you can see, I don’t have much to store in my desk drawer. But as you can see in the first video, I do like to hoard a thousand Chipotle napkins and cutlery. I am proud that I finally cleaned it out and organized it better. Woo Hoo! One point for me!

The 2nd video is a little grosser. I was in a VERY bad mood and instead of yelling at my kids and husband or sulking in my bed until I fell asleep, I decided to lock myself in the bathroom with a container of Clorox Wipes. Yup, you read that right. I put myself in a Clorox Wipe Time Out. I sat on the floor and hit record on my camera and wiped everything in the camera’s site. When that was done, I checked in with myself to see if my temper had subsided and it hadn’t, so I turned the camera to another corner of the nasty bathroom floor and Cloroxed that section too. Woo Hoo, 2nd point!

This bathroom will never, I repeat NEVER be 100 % clean at the same time, but using Clorox wipes here and there instead of wasting tears in my pillow is a very productive use of my energy. And maybe, just maybe, the bathroom might actually get fully clean one day.

I think this spoiled child personality of mine might ACTUALLY be maturing. ((GASP))

Thank you for your kind words of encouragement, please remember that we are all here to support each other so there is no need for harsh opinions. Depression isn’t easy to live with every day, especially when you’re expected to go to work and still go home and clean up your house.

If you’re looking for a clean with me video where it goes from complete pig sty to immaculate and magazine ready, then skip this video and move along to someone else’s.

This Dining Room looked somewhat decent shortly before Halloween and then November happened and it’s like a tornado came through here… again. The last time we used this dining room for something “normal” was on December 1st when the kids brought home Ginger Bread houses and decorated them at the table. Everything continued to pile up from there. Now we are in the new year and I don’t want to let my dining room get outta hand again. This means it needs constant attention, not just one long night every 3 months. This video does not show a messy dining room transforming into a perfect dining room, oh no – but it sure looks a lot better than it did. Don’t you agree?

side note:
I started out with little signs (in the right-hand corner of the room) to help me stay on track, but it honestly didn’t really do anything to help me.

When you have a new puppy, she might go through a chewing phase where she will grab shoes, trash, toys and whatever else she can find. She might bring them to a random place in the backyard and leave it there for “someone” to clean up later. Fast forward a few years and 4 more puppies join the house and each puppy goes through their own chewing phase.

But when you have 4, excuse me, 5 people that refuse to clean after their dogs, you get a backyard like mine! 😦 So not only do we have nuggets (galore) out here, we also have all the trash, toys and random shoes that each puppy has had their paws on to contribute to this mess. In the past, I’ve hired someone to clean it up- they didn’t have the means to transport it off my property and so (most of) the bags stayed in the backyard. Eventually, they started to fall apart and we were no longer able to remove them from the backyard so easily. So the mess really never left. Some did, yes, but not all. And I can’t afford to hire someone to come out again, not now anyway.

I bet you’re wondering what my motivation is, right? Well, for ONE: I’d like to invite people to look at the awesome shed that my husband built me. But I cannot bring myself to do that with the backyard looking the way that it did. TWO: I, myself, was gagging on my way to my shed, and I HATED walking back there, so I wanted it clean – NOW. And I actually could see a possible solution to getting it done.

My Solution to getting it done:

1. Get a kitchen trash bag
2. Fill it about halfway
3. Drop all expectations
4. Work Hard, for as long as you can
5. Have a kid take the kitchen trash bag to the trash container out front
6. Take a break if you need to
7. Start all over again, but only if you want to & can.

No matter what excuse I have in this world for NOT cleaning my room, the one I’m gonna stick with is… “but I’m too tired! I just wanna go to sleep!”

Sound familiar?

Yup, rather than picking up after myself each night before bed, I just toss “whatever” items I don’t want to deal with to my side of the room to be dealt with “later”.

Well, Crystal, “LATER” is here – and it’s time to tackle this ever-growing mountain of clothes and whatnot.

This video I made, starts off with a video from December 16th. I felt (at the time) that I made a pretty good “DENT” before bed and promised myself that I would do some more “tomorrow” or in other words: “later”.

Then Christmas Week happened.

And The Christmas Stress with The Christmas Mess started piling up around my bedroom … AGAIN.

That mountain can sure become a LIFE of it’s own.

So on December 27th, I tackled it once and for all.

Well, not “all”.

I’m sure there is MORE to do and I’m sure I’ll be back at it again in the future, taming the beast.

So am I “too tired” must I *really* sleep?

It’s all a matter of a perspective.

When I say, “Too Tired, Must Sleep” – the translation of these words are: “Too Lazy, Don’t Care so let’s make Mountain instead.”

Here is the video (of both nights, combined into one) if you care to watch the mountain crumble – in hyperspeed of course! 🙂 -and a voice over! 😉